[ecrea] Call for Expressions of Interest: Musical Fan Communities: Connected Across Borders

Musical Fan Communities: Connected Across Borders

Call for Expressions of Interest


Principal investigator: Dr. Laura MacDonald (University of Portsmouth)

Co-investigator: Dr. Jonathan Evans (University of Portsmouth)


After a successful research day in May 2015 and a presentation at the 
Fan Studies Network conference in June 2015, we are now preparing a bid 
for the AHRC Research Networking Scheme. This funding would support 
research events in the UK and abroad, and lead to a special issue of a 
peer-reviewed journal. In order to submit as compelling a bid as 
possible, we would like to confirm the ongoing interest of our initial 
participants and recruit additional participants. With this in mind, we 
are soliciting expressions of interest, outlining projects and areas of 
interest that would benefit from development in an international, 
interdisciplinary network.

Our ongoing research investigates how film and theatrical musicals are 
received and remediated by fans in other cultures where other languages 
are spoken. Our wider questions include: How do fans of musicals deal 
with language difference? What sort of fan organised activity is there 
in relation to musicals? Our focus, therefore, is on how fans translate, 
literally and metaphorically, foreign musicals for themselves and their 
peers: both in the form of lyric translation and subtitling, but also in 
the form of reviews and commentary. Through an analysis of evidence of 
fan activities such as subtitling, YouTube performances and comments, 
amateur performances, fans' international travel to sites of musical 
theatre performance, and online forum discussions, we will argue that 
the communal activity of theatre going serves as a basis for a gift 
culture that focuses on sharing and giving others access to foreign 
texts. Drawing on close readings of these materials and theories of 
audiovisual translation, consumption and fandom, we will suggest fan 
practices play a significant role in the musical's success as a global 
genre and in creating communal, non-national spaces based around shared 
affective experience.

Network participants will be working in musical theatre, theatre, film, 
media, European, Asian, and/or American studies. They may also be 
engaged in digital humanities projects, or employed in industries 
relevant to this research. The fans, the stakeholders in this network's 
investigations, will also be involved in research events.

Interested participants are ask to respond by 30 November to both Laura 
MacDonald ((laura.macdonald /at/ port.ac.uk)) and Jonathan Evans 
((jonathan.evans /at/ port.ac.uk)) with an abstract or outline of no more than 
250 words indicating a project or area of research that would benefit 
from development through this network, keeping in mind the focus on fan 
practices in response to stage and screen musicals in languages and 
cultures other than those of the musical's origins.



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